I subsequently read his magnum opus "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" as well. First written as a series of essays in the French communist party daily Humanite, it was overpoweringly silly. He repeatedly mentioned Timosoara, the town where protests by minority Hungarians precipitated the downfall of the Romanian dictatorship in 1989, as an example of the misuse of hyperreality: his outraged tone hinted that he and the majority of Romanians might not share the same conception of reality. In practise, this has always been the art of politics, to do what observers and opponents cannot understand. In the words of Machiavelli, in chapter eighteen of the Prince:

Men in general judge more by their eyes than by their hands, because seeing is given to everyone, touching to few. Everyone sees how you appear, few touch what you are; and these few dare not oppose the opinion of many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.